Library Warnings
by shadowcat15
Summary: CoS missing scene What happened between the time when Hermione went off to the library and when she and Penelope were found in the hall petrified.


Library Warnings

by shadowcat15

Hermione gave a little squeal of excitement. Hurridly looking around for anyone who could see her, she ripped the page out of the book she had been reading, making a silent apology to Madam Pince, who would no doubt be furious when she discovered that someone had ripped a page out of a book in _her_ library. Replacing the book on the shelf, set the paper down on the table nearby, scribbled something in the corner.

Heaving her bag of heavy school books, quills, parchment, and other things onto the table, she rooted through it, looking for the small compact mirror that Lavender and Parvati always insisted she carry around with her because "you could never tell when a cute guy you want to impress would show up". Who'd have ever thought it might come in useful?

While putting her bag back on her shoulders, she looked around at the practically empty library, and spotted the only other person besides the librarian, to whom she sent another silent apology. Penelope Clearwater. She was a sixth year Ravenclaw, and Hermione knew that she was dating Ron's older brother, Percy. How she could stand to be around him, much less date him was a mystery to most Gryffindors, but that was far besides the point right now.

Hesitantly, she approched the older girl. And as she got closer, she saw that the table Penelope was at had papers from many classes strewn across it. Hermione recognized some of them as ones that she wished to take next year, when they could choose their classes. Currently the Ravenclaw was bent over a book with diagrams of telephones, televisions, and other electrically powered muggle items, writing on a piece of parchment she had next to the book. _Must be Muggle Studies_, thought Hermione.

"Miss Clearwater? Penelope?" she asked nervously, and Penelope looked up at her from her writing, her hand pausing in mid sentence. Penelope's blue eyes swept over the figure in front of her, taking in the bushy hair and bookbag with too many boods, then locked onto hers, and for a minute Hermione saw confusion, the recognition. _Percy's probably mentioned me to her before, _ Hermione thought somewhat bitterly, _as the bushy-haired, book wielding friend of his little brother's._

"Hermione, right?" Penelope asked politly. Hermione nodded, and Penelope put her quill down. "What can I do for you? If you need help with your studies I'm sorry, but I can't help you right now. As you can see, I'm a little swamped." she motioned to all the books and papers that littlered the table she had taken over.

"No, that's not it." Hermione hurried to assure her. "I just wanted to talk to you about…something." she finnished, knowing it sounded lame. She got a chair from one of the neighboring tables, and brought it over to sit besides Penelope. "You know the attacks that have been going on around here on muggle-born?" Penelope nodded slowly not understanding where this was going.

"If you have any information about who is behind these attacks, then I think you should talk to Dumbledore, not me. I'm just a prefect, at the most I could get you to the Head Boy or Girl, and they could let you into his office."

"I know that, and that's where I'll be headed after I'm done here. That is…_if _I can make it there." At Penelope's widened eyes, Hermione knew she'd caught the girl's interest. "I've been piecing together clues, and trying to figure out what or who could be petrifying these people, animal, and ghost. And I just figured out what it is. I need to tell someone, so if I don't make it, you can go tell Dumbledore. Could you do that for me?" Hermione said, looking straight into the older girl's eyes.

Penelope nodded once again, having no idea what she was getting into, and not caring one bit. If there was something wrong with this twelve-year-old girls theory, she would simply point it out and get on with her school-work.

Hermione visibly relaxed. Someone would listen to her, there was hope if she didn't get to Dumbledore in time. "It's a basalisk." Penelope had no reaction for a second, then her brain registered what the Gryffindor was telling her. She had read about basalisks before, and quickly ran through the things that she knew about them. You had to look directly into a basalisks eyes to die, and if you saw them through something—like a ghost or a camera—then you would only be petrified. But that was the only thing that she could remember.

Seeing the look of confustion Penelope was generating, Hermione started to talk. "The spiders are afraid of it, and Ron and Harry talked to some of them. The cry of the rooster is fatal to anyone who hears it, and Hagrid said that several of the school rooseters had been strangled. And Harry and Ron found out that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before, and a muggle-born girl died in the bathroom—Moaning Myrtle. They asked her what happened and she said that the last thing she remembers seeing before she died was a pair of glowing yellow eyes that came from the sink that doesn't work.

"I think that the baslisk's been using the plumbing to get around the school, because Harry's a parslemouth, and he's been hearing a voice in the walls talking about ripping, killing, and how it must have blood. Every time he's heard it, there's been another attack, and he's followed the voice, and is caught at the scene of the crime. If you go with me, we'll use mirrors to look around the corners so we won't die." Hermione took in a deep breath after all this, putting her head down for a few seconds, and wondered if Penelope had caught any of it, for she had been speaking rather fast.

When she looked up at Penelope, she saw determination in her eyes. Without putting any of her papers away, she got up and motioned for Hermione to stay put for a minute. She walked over to Madam Pince's desk and asked her something in a voice too quitet to be heard from where Hermione was. When she came back, she picked up a mirror from her bookbag, and told Hermione, "Madam Pince doesn't know where either the Head Boy or Girl are, so we'll have to go to one of the teachers who would know Dumbledore's password. McGonagall, perhaps."

"I know the password." Hermione told her softly, putting her bookbag alongside Penelope's, knowing she wouldn't need it. She had her wand. "From when Harry went down there, he told Ron and I the password in case we ever needed to get into there and no one was around. And if it's changed, he told me that it's always a candy. It was Sherbert Lemon last time he was there." Penelope shook her head at the twelve-year old: this girl continued to surprise her.

"Come on then, let's go."

Right when the two girls were about to leave the library, Madam Pince called to them, asking them to pick up their mess. All it took for her to let them go was a quick mention of 'girl stuff', and they were out of the door.

When they reached the first corner, both held the mirrors out, and—

HarryPotterHarryPotterHarryPotterHarryPotterHarryPotterHarryPotterHarryPotterHarryPotterHarryPotter

So, how'd I do? I was reading a story and my plot bunny, Greg, decided to pay me a visit. I did all of this without looking at the books, so if I got any facts wrong, feel free to let me know—nicely. R&R please.


End file.
